Marsh Towers features reviews of books, shows and events together with sundry musings

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Memory Palace

Memory Palace

V&A Museum, London

London - deep in the future. A huge magnetic storm has destroyed the world's information infrastructure. In the new dark age, memory is outlawed. One cannot legally record any memories or thoughts in any way, shape or form . Living in the moment is all that is allowed. A banned sect seeks to keep alive the 'art of memory'. Those who are caught are imprisoned.

This is the basic premise of the Hari Kunzru's Memory Palace. The narrator is in prison, guilty of the crimes outlined above. Yet the narrator perseveres with the desire to remember, being of the firm belief that such a path represents the only hope of ultimate salvation from a dystopian world.

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The V&A museum, in partnership with Sky Arts Ignition, are running an exhibition as a companion piece to the new book. Segments of the book are utilised and they are augmented by a plethora of impressive and intriguing pieces of art.

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It's an unusual way to present a work of fiction but one which is certainly effective. Of course, the roots are clearly on show: 1984, The Prisoner...even Diamond Dogs, to tie-in with the David Bowie Is exhibition in the same museum.

The fourth wall is well and truly shattered at the end of the exhibition, when all visitors are invited to extend the barriers and even cross the line between fact and fiction by recording one memory which will be recorded on the website and become part of an ongoing artistic experiment.

The exhibition runs until 20 October 2013. Further details are available on the V&A website.